Robin reading the story on the man walking in the woods, To Build a Fire by Jack London.

Last week, we built two fires, both on different days (Monday and Friday).

A week or so before that we also built a fire.

1st fire – Friday:

Kathy Doyle, an ecology expert and two teachers from Bennington were with us as well. Some of the adults on the day built a fire by the shelter Jake and I were working on. The teachers and some of the students read a story about a man lost in the woods. The book was called To Build a Fire by Jack London. That day, it was perfect to read it, as I was very cold, especially my hands. This helped to make the story more realistic. One of the winter gloves that day I believe I got a small hole on it as I had them on over the fire trying to get my hands warm. As we were walking, we read the story and had multiple people reading it.

2nd fire – Monday (last week):

Mostly the adults that were there helped to make the fire, by the shelters that Jake and I made previously, we got rocks, white bark paper, twigs, small logs and a match to make the fire. This was when Michael was here and Jim Gunn was the sub for Robin. Most of the people there, including myself, ate a marshmallow on the stick. Jake and I also worked on improving our shelter and Lucas and Keighan worked on their shelter. We read To Build a Fire by Jack London on this day as well by the fire. If I remember correctly, Jim Gunn read it by the pond before the bridge.

3rd fire – Friday:

This was in the same place our original fire was at before the bridge on the Herrick House Trail. We collected twigs, small logs, and sticks for the fire. We started the fire with a lighter.* We roasted small mini hot dogs on sticks and ate them. I think on this day we somewhat skipped on reading the story and possibly only read it once or twice in the beginning.

On the two days of reading the story it didn’t feel as realistic as it did when we first read it, as only that day I was very cold. So it could be easy to relate to the man’s story whereas on the two days after, it was hard as I didn’t feel cold, nor was I lost in the woods.

*I should note on most days we built the fire with a lighter or matches.